Production and storage of compressed hydrogen in any form such as conventional compressed gas, liquid, hydrides, nanotubes, capillary arrays, and microspheres is a big issue among energy industries. The U.S. Energy Department has stated that hydrogen compression and storage problems are a major obstacle in the commercialization of hydrogen cars, trains, ships, drones, bus, and trucks. The conventional piston compressors have many moving parts requiring lubrication and service to prevent wear. In addition, hydrogen is about 16 times lighter than air, combustible and is difficult to compress and store safely due to leakage. The conventional compressor must be delicately and finely machined to assure tight fit to prevent hydrogen gas from escaping into the surroundings. Excellent sealing is also essential for conventional compressor to prevent lubricants from contaminating the hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas can be easily contaminated resulting in substandard performance and increased costs. These are contaminants typically include CO2, N2, O2 as well as other gases in the working environment. These issues remain a problem for hydrogen filling stations and even for power plant generators.
The costs of transportation, equipment maintenance, renting cylinders for storage, operating cooling generators may be prohibitive to developing machinery for a future hydrogen economy, as these systems will have to handle up to thousand cubic meter of hydrogen per day. A device which can be made inexpensive, with no moving parts, and requires very little maintenance may advantageously overcome these current limitations in these systems.
The laser driven plasma-shock-acoustic wave compressor described herein resolves many if not all these problems and critical issues. The disclosed subject matter replaces the metal piston of a conventional compressor and hydrated electrochemical with a specially pulsed laser to provide the compressive energy. Pressure from plasma generation provides the compression action. In the near term and beyond a large market potential in the hydrogen gas will be in providing portable fueling stations for buses, ships, drones, aircraft, trains, and automobile fleets. The discloses subject matter is ideally suited for use in small portable fuel pumping that can be great benefit to consumers. Additionally, the disclosed subject matter when used in series or parallel may achieve greater scale and application.
The potential applications of the disclosed subject matter, such as the charging of fuel cells, airbags, replenishment for cooling power plant generator, production of ethylene and in die-casting processes exists where conventional compressor types have long dominated. A wide variety of electronics manufacturers use hydrogen as a carrier gas for thin-film deposition, cleaning and as a reducing agent in furnace treatments. Another advantage of the disclosed subject matter is that it makes very little noise and has a smaller footprint along with reduced weight compared to current compressing devices and methods. Lower capital costs, increased safety benefits and the reduction of operating cost of the disclosed subject matter in comparison with hydrogen cylinder rental, and cylinder handling will greatly benefit all users. The resultant compressed gas (H, O, CO2, N2, etc.) for the disclosed subject matter may be used for energy carriers, fuel resources, cooling systems, heat engines, semiconductor manufacturers, fuel cells, fireless steam energy, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) power generation, and many other potential applications.